understand all its products, all its various forms of employment, and must teach himself, by degrees, to be as much at home in the valuation of the flocks upon a sheep-run, the cattle upon a farm, or the trees in an acre of mahogany forest, as he is when engaged in the more legitimate calculations of a merchant's business, such as pricing silks and broadcloths from England and France, wines from Spain, or teas and sugars from Singapore. It has been by this correctness of judgment in every branch of colonial business, and not by confining their attention to any one class of speculation in particular, that the successful men have made their money in Swan River; and what has been done by them may be done again by a new-comer if he goes to work in a similar manner.
Such, then, as far as we were able to form an opinion from our own observations and from the conversation of others better qualified to judge, are the capabilities of this colony with respect to trade and commerce.
The natural products of Western Australia are numerous and valuable, and are, by degrees, obtaining a larger share of public attention than has hitherto been vouchsafed to them in the other Australian settlements. The capitalists of Sydney and Melbourne are beginning to inquire whether new fields for speculation are not to be found in the forests and the pearl banks of their Western sister, and it seems probable that, under the energetic rule of the present Governor, Mr. Weld, himself an old colonist of New Zealand, every encouragement will be given to the enterprise and activity of all who may desire to aid in the development of her resources.
Want of capital has hitherto kept Swan River in the
